{"id":185752,"date":"2014-08-22T18:29:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T23:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/08\/22\/the-twinkie-defense-the-chewbacca-defense-and-now-the-bitches-be-crazy-defense\/"},"modified":"2014-08-22T18:29:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T23:29:00","slug":"the-twinkie-defense-the-chewbacca-defense-and-now-the-bitches-be-crazy-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/08\/22\/the-twinkie-defense-the-chewbacca-defense-and-now-the-bitches-be-crazy-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"The Twinkie Defense, The Chewbacca Defense, and now the Bitches be Crazy Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan White got away with murdering George Moscone and Harvey Milk through the Twinkie Defense<\/a>, Chef got put sentenced to jail, and sprung from jail with the Chewbacca defense<\/a>, and in the Bob McDonnell bribery case, the defense has become even more ludicrous with the “Bitches be Crazy” defense. <\/p>\n

That’s right, the former governor of Virginia’s defense team has become even more absurd than the minds of Tray Parker and Matt Stone.<\/p>\n

His defense is that he didn’t take any bribes, it was all his wife, a technically private citizen is unbalanced, and had a crush on the man who bribed the governor, and that he had nothing to do with it. I guess the loan of a Ferrari, and the golf outing worth something in excess of $10,000.00, and thousands of dollars of loans from tobacco based “medicine” mogul Jonnie Williams, were just \u2026\u2026\u2026 “stuff”<\/p>\n

As Eugene Robinson notes, the technical term for this is “throwing his his wife under the bus<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

How far would you go to stay out of jail? Would you publicly humiliate your wife of 38 years, portraying her as some kind of shrieking harridan? Would you put the innermost secrets of your marriage on display, inviting voyeurs to rummage at will?<\/span>

<\/span> For Robert McDonnell, the former Virginia governor on trial for alleged corruption, the answers appear to be: \u201cAs far as necessary,\u201d \u201cHey, why not?\u201d and \u201cSounds like a plan.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> McDonnell\u2019s testimony this week in a federal courtroom in Richmond about his wife\u2019s psychological turmoil has been both cringe-worthy and compelling. It has been clear for some time that McDonnell\u2019s strategy for winning acquittal amounted to what could be called the \u201ccrazy wife\u201d defense. But only when he took the stand did it become apparent how thoroughly he intended to humiliate the \u201csoul mate\u201d he still claims to love.<\/span>

<\/span> McDonnell disclosed Thursday that he moved out of the family\u2019s home shortly before the trial began. \u201cI knew there was no way I could go home after a day in court and have to rehash the day\u2019s events with my wife,\u201d he testified.<\/span>

<\/span> I guess not. Anyone who said such things in public about his or her spouse would be advised to clear out.<\/span>

<\/span> McDonnell testified that Maureen McDonnell was so volatile that the entire staff at the governor\u2019s mansion signed a petition threatening to quit if her behavior didn\u2019t improve. \u201cShe would yell at me,\u201d he told the court. \u201cShe would tell me I was taking staff\u2019s side, that I didn\u2019t know what was really going on over there.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> He said he believed his wife needed professional counseling, though it was unclear whether he tried very hard to convince her to seek it. He spoke of the family\u2019s severe financial problems, which included large credit card bills, and said that \u201cit just seemed like there was too much stuff that she was buying.\u201d Prior testimony has indicated, however, that unwise real estate investments caused most of the problem \u2014 and that Robert McDonnell, not Maureen, ran the family finances.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are also tens of thousands of dollars of loans from the snake oil salesman, but hizonner the governor thought that nothing war wrong with that<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Testifying for the third day in his public corruption trial, former Gov. Bob McDonnell said today he saw nothing inappropriate about $70,000 in loans he negotiated with businessman Jonnie Williams in 2012. <\/span>

<\/span> The loans were extended by the diet supplement maker to a real estate company the governor operated with his sister to manage rental properties they owned in the Sandbridge area of Virginia Beach. Rents on the properties were falling short of covering expenses, and the McDonnells needed to make up the deficit.<\/span>

<\/span> McDonnell said he saw nothing wrong with the loans because Williams hadn\u2019t asked him to do anything on his behalf and his administration hadn\u2019t done the businessman any favors.<\/span>

<\/span> Williams testified earlier that he and the governor agreed the loans would be granted on a handshake and kept just between the two of them.<\/span>

<\/span> McDonnell today denied that claim. \u201cThere was no such discussion with Mr. Williams,\u201d he said.<\/span>

<\/span> He said he tried to get the terms of the loans in writing, but that never occurred.<\/span>

<\/span> He said he did not disclose the Williams loans on his annual financial disclosure statement because they were corporate loans for which he had no personal liability.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah. Nothing shady here.<\/p>\n

Seriously, I half expect the jury to take a page from the original version of the Mel Brooks film The Producers<\/i><\/a>, and announce that, “We find the defendants incredibly guilty.”<\/p>\n

Dude, you are going to jail.  The decision that you made is to go without a shred of dignity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan White got away with murdering George Moscone and Harvey Milk through the Twinkie Defense, Chef got put sentenced to jail, and sprung from jail with the Chewbacca defense, and in the Bob McDonnell bribery case, the defense has become even more ludicrous with the “Bitches be Crazy” defense. That’s right, the former governor of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,1051,972,978,1019],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-hypocrisy","category-justice","category-politics","category-schadenfreude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185752"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}